Stone and Water by Zurita Studio and Kalibra Arquitectura transforms the ruins of a 19th-century border surveillance post above the Guadiana River into a compact off-grid dwelling, using the existing stone perimeter as both structural support and spatial generator.
Stone and Water Technical Information
- Architects: Zurita Studio + Kalibra Arquitectura
- Location: Camino del Romerano, Sanlúcar de Guadiana, Huelva, Spain
- Gross Area: 91.50 m2 | 985 Sq. Ft.
- Project Years: 2022 – 2025
- Photographs: © Juanca Lagares and Ulrich Stockhaus
Rather than restoring the ruin as a historical object, the architecture uses the existing stone perimeter as a structural and spatial device that defines the geometry, thresholds, and atmosphere of the house.
– Zurita Studio + Kalibra Arquitectura
Reusing a Border Ruin as Spatial Structure
Stone and Water occupies the remains of a former Civil Guard post built at the end of the 19th century on the Spanish bank of the Guadiana River. Its original function was tied to surveillance, border control, and the monitoring of smuggling between Spain and Portugal. The project does not erase this history, but neither does it freeze the ruin as an archaeological fragment. The retained stone walls become the primary ordering element of the house, carrying both physical loads and spatial memory.
The existing perimeter defines more than an envelope. Its thickness, irregular openings, deep embrasures, and traces of former use establish the measure of the new domestic rooms. Historic loopholes beneath the windows remain visible, registering the building’s earlier role as a lookout toward the river. In this sense, the ruin is not treated as surface decoration, but as an operative structure that determines thresholds, views, and degrees of enclosure.
The exterior makes the temporal layering legible through material contrast. Weathered masonry, areas of old limewash, and scarred plaster form a horizontal band across the facade, while new white render consolidates and extends the volume with restraint. This distinction avoids stylistic imitation. The house reads as a continuous body marked by interruption, where repair is visible and the new work accepts its secondary role beside the inherited fabric.
Landscape, River, and the Architecture of Return
The house is positioned on a hillside above the Guadiana, within a landscape of river vegetation, olive trees, eucalyptus, and rural paths. Sanlucar de Guadiana has long functioned as an inland anchorage for sailors moving between the Atlantic and the river interior, and this condition informs the project without literal reference. The dwelling is shaped by departure and return, by the need for shelter after movement, and by the presence of water as both orientation and cultural background.
The roof is a key device in this negotiation between privacy and exposure. It slopes with the terrain, lowering itself toward the access path and rising toward the river. From the landward side, the house maintains a compact, guarded presence. Toward the Guadiana, a single large aperture frames the landscape with precision, transforming the mezzanine into a room of observation rather than display.
Exterior spaces extend the domestic program into the hillside. A tiled terrace, low parapet, reed pergola, and outdoor thresholds mediate between the enclosed volume and the riverbank below. These elements allow daily routines to shift with weather and season, from shaded meals to open-air rest. The house therefore operates in two registers: as a refuge embedded in the slope and as a lookout connected to the historical geography of the border.
Interior Continuity and Domestic Flexibility
Inside, the plan is organized as a continuous sequence with few fixed separations. Privacy is not produced primarily through doors, but through alignment, depth, changes in level, and the selective orientation of views. This strategy gives the compact footprint a greater spatial range, allowing the dwelling to accommodate solitary occupation while still hosting family gatherings or social encounters.
The double-height living and dining room forms the central spatial volume. Exposed rubble stone, patches of historic plaster, white lime render, cement flooring, and a laminated pine roof structure meet without being visually flattened. A straight timber stair rises along the stone wall to a mezzanine used as a library and bedroom, where bookshelves, a low bed, and the river-facing opening create an upper domestic platform suspended within the larger room.
The material palette reinforces the sense of a house assembled through continuity rather than formal effect. Pine beams are reused for stairs and kitchen elements, while cement surfaces extend across floors, countertops, showers, and washbasins. Found objects, existing cupboards, appliances, art, and reused construction remnants are integrated into the architecture. The result is not a curated rusticity but a pragmatic interior in which material repetition provides coherence under economic constraints.
Environmental Logic and Economy of Means
The environmental strategy relies on passive principles suited to the climate of southern Spain. Existing stone walls and continuous floors provide thermal mass, while roof insulation and orientation reduce unwanted heat gain, particularly from late afternoon sun. Cross-ventilation is enabled by openings on multiple facades, and the double-height interior allows warm air to stratify above the occupied zone.
This approach is inseparable from the project’s economy of means. A limited budget, limited access, and rural construction conditions lead to careful use of what already exists or can be adapted. Preserving the stone perimeter reduces material consumption while maintaining the ruin’s spatial intelligence. Repetition of construction elements gives the house technical clarity, with the same materials assuming different roles across structure, furniture, and surface.
The off-grid photovoltaic system is located on a nearby structure that also functions as shaded parking, separating energy production from the compact historic volume. The galvanized steel pergola supports a reed canopy that can be replaced or adjusted according to season and available materials. Shade, ventilation, thermal inertia, and outdoor living are treated as architectural instruments rather than supplementary devices, reconnecting the house to a southern culture of inhabitation shaped by heat, water, and measured exposure.
About Zurita Studio and Kalibra Arquitectura
Zurita Studio is an architecture practice based in Seville, Spain, founded and directed by Manuel Silva Zurita, while Kalibra Arquitectura is based in Madrid and Padua and was founded by Simone Lorenzon and Valeria Polato. Between 2020 and 2023, the two studios formed a joint practice with a shared approach rooted in site-specific architecture, careful dialogue with physical and human contexts, sustainability, and close collaboration with users.
Credits and Additional Notes
- Client: Olga
- Construction company: Pedro Madrid
- Design and authorship: Manuel Silva Zurita of Zurita Studio; Simone Lorenzon and Valeria Polato of Kalibra Arquitectura.
- Photographs: Juanca Lagares and Ulrich Stockhaus.
- Author portrait of Manuel Silva Zurita photographed by Jaime Tunon.
- Product and brand suppliers: Andamasa, Marino de la Fuente, Artes Robles, Gordillos Cal de Moron, and La Escandella.
